


One Last Challenge

by softly_speaking_valkyrie



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Bodyguard Kisara, Comfort, Confession, Dark Side of Dimensions, Duel Monsters, Duelling, Gay, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Lots of kissing, Love, M/M, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, Romance, Saying goodbyes, Timeshipping, mlm, queer, rivalshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 09:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15288126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/softly_speaking_valkyrie
Summary: Set directly after The Dark Side of Dimensions. Seto uses the last remaining power of the Quantum Cube to propel himself to wherever the Pharaoh might be. Finding him, finally, Seto challenges Atem to a final duel to say goodbye, but not before confessing his love for his rival. And upon returning back to Domino, Seto realises that his life is forever changed, and what he’s wanted all this time, has been right in front of him, and by his side all along…





	One Last Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo! First real Yugioh fic from me! Please leave a comment or/and a like if you enjoy this! I love this fandom so much and the show more than ever.

A new challenger. No. Rather an old friend, a friend being used loosely to describe such a man. The Pharaoh observed the intruder coming forward as the phalanx of guardsmen stood forward and thrust spears at the rather gilded and bright man walking forward. Pharaoh Atem could tell who he was by the bright silver of his impeccable (as always) jacket, the flaring of the lower half of it still as wild as always. It felt like a lifetime since Atem had seen him, back in the physical realm, through the eyes of another man.

He seemed different, exceptionally so. By the scattered metal items around his head, face and left arm, what Atem knew the people of Yugi’s world called ‘cybernetics’ or ‘virtual reality enhancements’. They were what made the duel disks in the real world, what made the duel monsters come alive from the holoprojectors. Atem understood the magic of it and the splendour, it was so much like his own dark magic, like the power of the Millennium Items and the Shadow Games, only innocent and non-destructive save for the powerful Egyptian God Cards. When Atem and Yugi had completed the passing ritual, Atem had been sure to take the Egyptian God Cards with him when the tomb collapsed.

Pharaoh Atem called off his guardsmen and smiled, sighing as he looked to his feet as the challenger approached him, something attached to his wrist on the left, black and blue and in the shape of a Duel Disk. Atem let out a pleased and excitable chuckle as his challenger stood, his body glowing and struggling, slightly apparitional.

“I am… so pleased to see you again, Seto Kaiba.”

Seto sniggered briskly as well, clenching his hands into fists. A couple of months ago he would have come here with such a different head, a different mind. One filled with thoughts of revenge and a need to win - now he simply could not feel more pleased, to see the Pharaoh again. His eyes became slightly glassy. “It’s been too long… Pharaoh.”

Atem now let out an audible cackle as he stood from his majestic throne, blonde fringe swaying behind his black and red hair.

“Out of all the magic I’ve seen of your world and mind, Kaiba, I have to say that this is the most surprising thing that I have ever seen… How are you even here? More so, why?” Pharaoh Atem greeted Seto, stepping forward down the steps from his throne. The phalanx of guardsmen was calmer now and standing peacefully with spears and shields in hands. Atem’s more personal advisors were also waiting plainly - Mana especially, even smiling at how happy Atem looked to see this strange man who appeared so out of time.

Seto smiled, and closed his eyes, feeling a warmth inside of his heart. It was really Atem, really the Pharaoh, his rival, the man he respected above all other people save for perhaps Yugi himself. “I never got to say goodbye…”

“You came all this way to say goodbye, Seto Kaiba?” Atem asked, his smile suddenly faded and stunned by the realism he detected in Seto’s voice.

This was a very different kind of Kaiba he had been used to dealing with. Even in the final days, he spent with Yugi and his friends, Seto was much the same man he had been since their first meeting, since the first time that Atem had bested him in Duel Monsters with the aid of the unstoppable Exodia the Forbidden One. Now, this Seto was humble, it seemed, emotional, open and honest with himself for the first time. And to see him here, in Atem’s own realm, wherever he was (he did not yet know himself), the Pharaoh understood that it meant that Seto must have come to the realisation that the deep magicks of the Millennium Items were indeed real. How else would he have been able to come here after the incident with the Planar and with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring?

Seto was smiling now, lifting up his chin to eye Atem once again and fisting the air ahead of him. “The only way I know I can with you, Pharaoh. Please… Give me one final duel! I can’t go on with it, Pharaoh!” He yelled, startling the phalanx and Mana. “I… I don’t think I can handle it without you Pharaoh… Duel Monsters… Duelling… Living…”

“Kaiba…”

“Come on… Pharaoh… One last challenge, for old time’s sake, not to find out who is superior, but to… to… to say goodbye! I don’t have much time like this. Please, Pharaoh!” Kaiba begged, pleaded, with all he had, even as the flares of his extraordinary shoulders faded like dust from a charred corpse. He knew his dimension technology with the husk of the Planar couldn’t contain him in this realm forever. But he needed this, needed to duel the Pharaoh, needed to say goodbye if he could never have him again in the physical world.

Atem’s eyes were glassy, and he stepped forward. With a gracious hand, his reached for Seto’s arm, gently touching it as the brunette towered over him. Even here Seto was taller.

“Kaiba…” Again the Pharaoh alluded, but struggled with what to say. He was touched, so deeply and intimately by Seto coming here, looking not for a fight, but just for something to say goodbye with. A final farewell to the person who had completely changed his entire life. For the better, too, as Seto judged it in his mind.

Seto stepped forward an inch, holding Atem’s hand caressing his own bicep. He struggled and his pupils quivered in his eyes. His rope was out and he was all out of moves. As his frame seemed to fade, little by little, Seto embarked forward, moving fingers to cup Atem’s cheek and he swallowed all pride reservation. Seto leaned forward and down slightly as he felt Atem coming to him too. Like gentlemen, they embraced in a lengthy and passionate kiss, one that had been far too long overdue, with Seto’s eyes threatening to break behind his eyes. The kissed killed him deep inside, for he knew he could never have another, and he had waited far too long for this. Atem was everything to him, his rival, his friend, the person that was (save Mokuba) closest to him and the only person he could trust. With family, with duelling, with business, and most importantly with emotions, especially love. Seto couldn’t stand this, hating it more and more as he held Atem closer and kissed him with a fiery gravity that made his heartbreak in his chest. He did not want to go, and if he had to, he wished, demanded of the cosmos to take Atem with him.

There was just no way. Yugi had convinced him, taught him. And while he was here, wherever here was, Duel Disk strapped to his forearm, lips on Atem’s, Seto knew Atem was gone. But at least here and now, was what Seto could say he had. Finally.

As they broke Seto could see the reflective glass of tears building in Atem’s eyes, feeling naked that his own were bulking with tears of his own. He wanted another, Seto wanted so much more. It wasn’t fair. He could have anything he could ever dream of, but not Atem.

“I need to warn you, Kaiba… I still have the same skill as Yugi… So prepare yourself for a final defeat…” Atem struggled through a deeply sad voice and tears coming a little slowly.

The mere attempt was enough to make Seto smile, relax, his heartwarming again. But he too was failing to deal with the reality before them. And yet, one final duel. It would be one he would ensure never to forget. “Heh, we’ll see about that. One thing you’ve missed while being away, Pharaoh… my deck is filled with new and rare cards, all designed to take you down, once and for all.”

Atem said nothing but leaned up and in one more time, for the last time he would have, and kissed Seto Kaiba again on his inviting lips, pushing all the want he’d had while inside of the Millennium Puzzle. Deep down, he’d loved Seto Kaiba for the longest time, and thanked the gods he was here. Wherever here was.

Mahado stepped into the throne room from a side entrance and smiled as he saw his Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba so close. Surely this would be their greatest duel yet. A duel to say goodbye, finally.

\------------------------------------------------------------

“I sacrifice my Vorse Raider and my Sagi the Dark Clown to call upon my faithful partner… Blue-Eyes White Dragon!” Seto called into the open throne room. Atem smiled as the guardsmen, Mana and Mahado all gawked in dread as Kaiba’s new Duel Disk shone a bright and vibrant blue.

From his forearm-mounted machine came a powerful force, only emphasised by the deep magicks around him, exhumed from the majestic Pharaoh and embellished by the palace. Kaiba smiled and again his eyes were blinded by passionate translucency, glass clouding his vision as he gawked at what seemed to be a proud Atem. His side of the field was home to only one remaining monster thanks to Seto’s Nightmare Wheel trap card containing the Dark Magician Girl in bondage. Only the powerful and regal looking Dark Magician remained to face the rising dragon.

Atem had one thousand life points remaining and Seto had merely half that much.

“The Blue-Eyes White Dragon never fails you Kaiba, just as my Dark Magician has never failed me… you’ve always placed your faith it… and even if you didn’t realise it… in the heart of the cards,” Atem told him, melodically as the fearsome and celestial radiance of the white-scaled behemoth that was the Blue-Eyes came to be, behind Seto.

Seto was seemingly crying now, feeling his dragon behind him, seeing the Dark Magician next to the Pharaoh. Kaiba could not help but see them stone tablet from the museum clearly in his mind again - the one Isis had shown him before giving him Obelisk the Tormentor preceding the Battle City Tournament. Seto did not know the intricacies of the meaning of the tablet wholly, but he knew that it symbolised the connection between himself, Atem, and Yugi.

“Pharaoh!” Seto cried across the field of their game, once again startling Mana and Mahado bear the throne. “I know I was wrong! That I treated you and Yugi unfairly due to my misguided quest for revenge… but you have to know… you made me become the man I am today! You helped me more than I have helped myself,” Seto confessed, so not wanting for this to be over. Not wanting to return to Domino without Atem holding his hand alongside him. Only now Kaiba hated his own inadequacy. He needed Atem, more than he had ever admitted. All he said was an utter truth.

Atem was crying now. Slow tears came from his deep and attractive eyes, making his eye makeup run down his cheeks as he awaited Seto’s attack. He would destroy the Dark Magician Girl and finally win. He deserved it.

“Seto… I promise… knowing you was a gift… every duel we fought not only pushed myself and Yugi to become better, but they made me see what life is really about… passion and drive, determination to never give up no matter the odds. And I thank you, Seto Kaiba. I… love you.”

Kaiba quivered and died a little inside. “Blue-Eyes Dragon… attack the Dark Magician Girl now…” he almost failed to say, choking on his tears and wishing he could remain.

The dimensioning device was making his readout flash red. The Planar was utterly failing and he was losing dimensional stability. He’d be transported back to Domino any minute, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Mr Kaiba, I must warn you that you’re losing dimensional stability, sir. We’re activating the emergency recall procedure now, sir. For your safety,” the head scientist was saying in his ear but Seto didn’t hear him, couldn’t as the Blue-Eyes White Dragon charged its attack at the bound Dark Magician Girl.

Without any more hesitation, the dragon unleashed a powerful force of White Lightning and the brightly-coloured Dark Magician Girl was erased from the throne room. Atem’s life points dropped to zero and Seto had won.

Seto Kaiba had won.

\------------------------------------------------------------

He woke up surrounded by grass, lush and verdant somewhere he did not know. It might not have even been Domino or Japan at all at first glance, Seto was too discombobulated. He had no idea where he was, or what state he was in - the Duel Disk strapped to his left forearm was wrecked and in tatters, as well as the small array of technical instrumentation around his neck and on her forehead. His alternate dimensional rifting device was destroyed, but Seto reached into his pocket firstly and pulled out the husk of the Planar to hold it flatly in his palm. It felt cold to the touch and a small breeze flew past Seto, brushing his hair a little and making him feel naked.

After the wind had subsided, Seto felt a minor shudder in the cube in his hand. The greyed out husk of the small box that Diva had used to almost destroy everything looked so small and feeble now in Seto’s hand, so meaningless, and so without power. Seto felt much the same as the cube now, realising he was somewhere Atem was not. The Pharaoh was gone, and now he was back. Wherever he was now.

The shuddering of the Planar subsided and within moments, it felt lighter. It collapsed, crumbling into dust from the main cube and a small piece of the millennium eye atop the small dusty pile now in Seto’s palm. It was gone. The Planar had lost all it had left in it from the Spirit of Ring’s plot and now Seto’s use of it to find the Pharaoh. He could never try again.

Seto sat in the field for a few minutes, counting them in his head as the breeze came and went a few times. His mind became blank a little, thinking of things in incoherent streams of fractured thought. He could not comprehend it, any of it. But he now had nothing of it left. The dust of the Planar had been swept away from his palm some time ago and now he was simply sitting among the grass and looking off to the distance, ignoring the beeping of his somehow still operational mission radio.

“Mokuba… are you there?” Seto asked into his radio, ignoring the critical shoutings of the mission staff and the horde of scientists. He wanted the quiet, and he wanted his brother.

“Seto? Is that you? Are you okay?! We lost you off the scopes for a moment there!” The sound of the younger Kaiba brother came blaring into his ear. Seto didn’t flinch from the insane volume or seem to even take his brother’s concerns in. Nor did he blink, he simply gazed out into the distance and maintained his compelling, gravitational composure. He was so crushed there was nothing left inside of Seto to react to. He needed to get out of her and get back to Domino, to KaibaCorp.

“I’m fine, Mokuba… Do you have my position now?”

Mokuba took a moment to come back, during which he seemed to calm the rabble of the scientists and bring the experiment and mission back under his own control. “Yeah, bro, we have you on the KaibaCorp scanners, but I’m still not exactly sure how the heck ya got there Seto…”

“Where am I Mokuba?” Seto asked, with no way to tell at all where he was at all. The temperature felt to him like Japan, but he could not be sure at all.

His brother seemed to laugh a little nervously as he looked back at the scanners back at KaibaCorp. “We’re still trying to think of how you ended up there from the elevator to the station, bro, but you’re kinda in the middle of nowhere. Some field somewhere near Kyoto, I think. The Blue-Eyes White Jet is en route now to pick you up, Seto. Are you coming back to Domino?” Mokuba asked, excited at the prospect of such.

Already Seto could hear the faint, airy noise of the jets of his Blue-Eyes shaped fighter jet coming from up ahead. He still felt utterly empty, and now his bones began to ache as he sembled to a stand. “Yes, I’m coming back to KaibaCorp now. But Mokuba, I need you to begin a complete termination of everything to do with Project Quantum. Destroy everything the scientists documented and seal away all automated mission reports. Stop the mission clock and erase it,” Seto instructed his younger brother, not bothering to say why or anything else. He couldn’t. Images of Atem in the throne room flashed in his mind as the Blue-Eyes White Jet landed and opened for him. Striding up the ladder he felt tuggings on his heart. He wanted to cry. “Don’t ask me why, Mokuba, I’ll tell you another time… After you’ve shut down the project, please meet me at Kaiba Tower, I’m in the air now.”

“Sure thing bro, the team’s already starting to dismantle the mission clock. I gotta say, we’re amazed you’re even back,” Mokuba alluded, as Seto rested his head into the seat of his jet and strapped in. He set the plane to autopilot and let the thing take him to Domino. He was in no condition to fly effectively.

“Is there something wrong with the mission clock? I was only gone for a short time, Mokuba…”

“A short time? Seto, you’ve been gone for three days!”

Seto stopped, shocked, but not a whole lot surprised. His heart tugged again, more powerfully, as he thought of Atem, his face, his hair, his beautiful eyes and intoxicating smile during their duel in the throne room. It was surreal. But Seto seemed to remember everything, in a dream-like state in his memory. A whole morning in that dimension was three days here, and Seto was now feeling as if he had spent every hour of them awake and without sleep or food. He was insanely hungry suddenly, tired as well, and his mouth was parched.

“Interesting, but don’t worry about it Mokuba… Please terminate all mission data and make sure it doesn’t enter the KaibaCorp archive. I don’t want people seeing anything to do with this technology,” Seto repeated to his younger brother. He tried to relax, pulling a small, squared juice box from one of the many compartments of the cockpit. His thirst was quenched.

He could sense Mokuba’s inaudible and disappointed sigh, but the younger Kaiba knew better sometimes not to question his brother, not only because the answer was something he didn’t need, but because his brother often needed to deal with things on his own. Whatever he had experienced during the mission, it was his own experience to know. Mokuba didn’t want to intrude.

“How’re you feeling, Seto?” Mokuba did ask, concerned now.

“I… I feel fine… If only a little hungry, and tired… Like I lived all three of those days without sleep even though to me it was only a couple of hours,” Seto confessed and pulled his tattered jacket from him, using it as a blanket as he tried to close his eyes for a few minutes.

“I’ll make sure things are set up when you get back, get some sleep bro, see you soon,” Mokuba cooed after Seto over the transmission. Through his screen, he could see the taller Kaiba nuzzling into a sleeping cradle position in the seat, and the younger brother smiled.

“Mokuba…” The smaller Kaiba heard from Seto who had his eyes closed.

He was about to terminate the transmission as the staff continued to dismantle the mission data. “Yes, Seto?”

“Could you… give Yugi a call for me? I need to meet him when I get back… Ask him if he could come by the office… Please, Mokuba?” Seto mumbled, utterly shattered by his exhaustion. He sounded like an innocent child for the first time since they were small children. Mokuba couldn’t help but smile and blush over his older brother.

Mokuba let out a small hum before ending the call. “Sure thing bro,” he reassured the slipping, sleeping Seto, before finally ending the call. “And it’s about damn time…”

\------------------------------------------------------------

“Please show him in, Kisara, and then have Roland ready the prototypes to show Yugi,” Seto asked of his personal assistant and all around everything woman Kisara. Her flowing white hair was still lush against the morning backdrop of rising sun and polite weather from outside the rear window of Seto’s office at KaibaCorp Tower the next day. He’d had to take the night off, to maintain himself.

Mokuba had a whole cart of fast food and Seto’s personal favourites ready and waiting when he had arrived atop the industrial complex on the Blue-Eyes White Jet the previous evening. Kisara had carried her boss from the cockpit of the craft straight to the bedroom on the top floor and made sure Seto was resting well. The mission clock had alarmed her as well as little Mokuba, but Kisara was the perfect pair of hands to help and relieve Seto Kaiba. He had hand-picked her after the Grand Championship and the scandal with Siegfried Von Schroeder and his younger brother Leon. Kisara had helped him utterly skyrocket KaibaCorp to become the leading technology and gaming corporation in the entire world.

“Yes, Mister Kaiba. Would you require anything? Either for yourself or Mister Mutou?” Kisara asked faithfully, her bright blue eyes piercing through her cool authority sunglasses. That was another thing that Kaiba liked about her - their mutual affinity for the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Kisara reminded him of a personification of the mighty card. Her white hair and deep blue eyes were very attractive.

“No, thank you, Kisara. You have the rest of the day off, enjoy yourself for a change,” Seto told her, smiling thankfully. He liked her very much as an employee, bodyguard, assistant, friend.

Kisara bowed at the door. “Very well, thank you Mister Kaiba. Have a good day with Mister Mutou.”

Several seconds later, Yugi entered the main office, a little shy and confused as to why Seto had asked for him to come by the tower, so soon after they had last met just after the Domino City Open, after defeating Diva and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring one last time. Yugi was still riding his little high in knowing that the Millennium Ring was finally (he always held his breath when mentally thinking that word in relation to the Millennium Ring) gone and destroyed forever that he would never have to deal with it again. For years that infernal Millennium Item had caused nothing but trouble for himself, Atem and all their friends. Mostly Bakura, this was about the fourth or fifth time it had been deathly dangerous for him. Yugi could never figure out why the Spirit of the Ring was so obsessed with him. Diva knew it too.

“You wanted to see me, Kaiba? What’s up? Is something wrong? You seemed a little stressed out when we met after the tournament. Do you still have the Planar?” Yugi asked all at once, coming to and around Seto’s desk to see him fully. Seto seemed and felt nervous inside, his chest heaving a little and his mind flashing back again and again to the images of him and Atem duelling in the throne room each time Yugi asked a question.

All at once, Seto stood, his hand coming to be placed on top of Yugi’s on the desk instinctively, and Seto was blushing a little. A little was enough for Yugi to notice but not say a thing about as he felt Seto’s warm hand atop his own.

“I’m fine, Yugi… I’m glad to see you again so soon,” Seto greeted him, his fingers curling nervously and slowly around Yugi’s hand. Now the smaller of the two men was blushing too, although more deeply than Seto. “I… I don’t have the Planar anymore… It turned to dust when I got back…” Seto alluded, not feeling strong enough to look Yugi in the eye. Instead, he turned to gaze out at the Domino skyline.

Yugi gasped a little audibly. “Turned to dust? How? Where did you go, Seto?” The smaller boy asked, and to his own knowledge (and, indeed, Kaiba’s) Yugi hadn’t ever called him by his own name before. He’d only addressed him as Kaiba before.

Now Seto was looking at Yugi, and instinctively gripping the smaller man’s hand in his own. “I… I saw him Yugi… I used the Planar and my own virtual technology and the Duel Disk Tech to travel down the elevator from my space station… I went to Egypt, to the palace… and I saw him,” Kaiba confessed, his eyes a little glassy just recollecting the events again from the previous morning, or three days ago, he was still trying to wrap his head around the meaning of the time distortion. “I duelled him, Yugi… The Pharaoh, to say goodbye.”

Yugi’s little eyes were wide and his blush had deepened as he felt Seto holding his hand on the desk. He didn’t look but kept his vision fixated on Seto’s own blue eyes. “Seto…” He tried but no words came to him.

Their hands still remained locked. “Yugi… I… I realised something, as I duelled him… in saying goodbye to him one last time… I…”

“Seto…” Yugi repeated, his own hand holding on for dear life to Kaiba’s.

They inched closer, the tension snapping between them and before Seto or Yugi could say another word, their lips were meeting in a glorious and well overdue kiss behind the desk. Seto took Yugi’s hand and guided it to cup his cheek as he held the smaller man’s waist and they simply remained, turning in place as they kissed deeper. Seto expected a similar sensation to the exchange with Atem in the alternate dimension, but the more and more he lavished Yugi Mutou with passion and finality, the more he felt the different texture of sweet lips and adorable taste of the smaller man. Yugi tasted delightful as they kissed, and his smaller frame was perfect for the tall Kaiba brother to hold a little firmly in his grasp. He had moved both hands to clutch at Yugi’s tight waist and held on as they kept on kissing. No tears escaped this time, but the passion was more explosive than when Seto was pouring himself into Atem in the throne room. Seto gave everything he had left in him over to Yugi and the smaller man took it and cherished it all in the span of one deep and momentous sequence of kisses. Yugi loved him, Seto could perfectly sense.

They parted lips but Yugi kept his hand cupping Kaiba’s cheek beautifully and he giggled a little with gratitude in his wide eyes.

“It’s… about time I did that… isn’t it?” Seto asked, caught blushing a deep and humorous red. He felt full again, and finally rid of such a large weight crushing down the exceptional shoulder he carried under his suave silver coat. Seto was even smiling again.

Yugi was still giggling. “I think so… Yeah, it totally was, Seto…”

“You’ve never called me by ‘Seto’ before… I… I like it, Yugi.”

It was Yugi who came in for the follow-up kiss now, pressing his gorgeous lips to Seto’s and embracing him fully in a deep and passionate display of adorable affection. His lower height meant he had to jump up on his tiptoes to fully kiss the towering Kaiba, but he wanted his lips on Seto’s again now. “Then I’ll keep calling you it, okay?”

Seto felt a cold shiver, and then a warm swelling in his heart, connecting him closely to smaller Yugi. “Sounds perfect to me… Yugi.”


End file.
